A rumor got jump-started during the
weekend, claiming that Chinese Oppo may be planning a separate online
smartphone company that will combine the premium manufacturer's build
quality with the famed CyanogenMod custom ROM. According to cnBeta,
Oppo's deputy general manager is interested in starting a new brand,
though things didn't really blow up until it became known that Oppo's VP, Pete Lau, has resigned his post earlier today.

It's
interesting to note that Lau has since commented on Chinese Weibo
that they're working on something that “may change the world of
Android”, not to mention that there's apparently a “perfect
Android flagship device” already in the works. That one is rumored
to sport the upcoming 2.5GHz MSM8974AC version of Snapdragon 800 –
the most powerful yet.

As
we go forward, it'll be interesting to see just how the new brand
will be structured and whether it'll be tethered to Oppo from the
very beginning. Turning to the rumor mill once again, cnBeta
reports that the new entity will be actually started from scratch and feature
its own designs, hardware, brand and sales channels, though this
remains unconfirmed (and a tad unlikely?). If anything it's quite unlikely that CyanogenMod will call it quits on Oppo quite so fast, seeing as the
manufacturer has been pretty
involved with the
software company.

posted on Nov 18, 2013, 5:48 AM 4

Posts: 341; Member since: Sep 20, 2011

The Tegra SoC along with its sources and blobs are closed sourced and all the proprietary stuff isn't accessible to all. Reason for which Tegra never really took off in the community. A truly 'open' device won't ever emerge unless Nvidia drops the insane licensing prices and opens the platform. On the other hand Intel Atom SoCs won't really offer any kind of advantage to the user, in fact it's quite the opposite since most Android apps are made using the NDK so they are architecture-dependant. And let's not forget that x86 SoCs only make up a very tiny portion of the SoC share so using x86 instead of ARM wouldn't really make sense.

posted on Nov 18, 2013, 7:35 AM 2

Posts: 430; Member since: Jun 30, 2012

posted on Nov 18, 2013, 4:10 PM 1

Posts: 341; Member since: Sep 20, 2011

Not true, all vendors must make their kernel sources available available as per GPL requirement (proprietary blobs are excluded). Naturally Qualcomm msm chips are the most open SoCs out there since their kernel sources and blobs are complete and made available on CodeAurora and AOSP repository EVEN if the sources are proprietary. The same can't be said for Exynos, Samsung's insignal repo is largely outdated and incomplete, lacking several core components for AOSP development. Nvidia didn't even open their binaries nor do they even maintain an official git repo with updated code with so development of whatever custom rom is hampered. Please go and educate yourself before sprouting crap.

posted on Nov 19, 2013, 6:05 AM 0

Posts: 13; Member since: May 02, 2012

posted on Nov 18, 2013, 7:27 AM 1

Posts: 2155; Member since: Oct 29, 2012

I kinda like the Oppo name, it's catchy, CyanogenModPhone would sound a lot worse They are on the right track, the N1 is a pretty exciting device and other Oppos sold pretty good in Asia, so they are definitely profitable. The hard part is doing a breakthrough abroad, Lenovo makes some of the best laptops and exactly no one buys their phones in the West. Xiaomi is definitely the model to follow, it already has a cult-like following in Europe, hundreds of thousands get it over the grey market, and if they open an EU HQ, it will sell like hotcakes.

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